“My
dear Lord, I think of the beautiful show of love for Your Blessed Mother that
is being shown on the feast of the Lady of Guadalupe and I wonder what You desire
for all Your people honoring Your Blessed Mother.
“To
love Your Mother as You do? She is the model of humility, the model of pure
love for God and the ultimate model for all humanity. It began with her
immaculate conception as You had chosen her to be a tabernacle for Your son,
sinless, holy and pure, to participate in the incarnation of not only her Savior,
but the Savior of all mankind. You saw all You needed in her heart to be the
one to be the mother of Your son. Her
simple yes to Your invitation to conceive a son through the power of the Holy Spirit,
even when she didn’t fully understand how it would be, shows us how to have
faith – faith in knowing that if You ask something of us, it will be in our
best interests and for Your glory. We need to remember that we are all simple
handmaids of the Lord, Your instruments. We belong to You and were created by You
so we owe our lives to You. Whatever You ask of us can never be too much. Our gratitude
and love needs to transcend all sense of human reasoning and lead us to trust
that whatever You ask of us is what we need to do and that it will glorify You.
You chose to be born in a manger amongst beasts of burden to a woman betrothed
to another man. Mary’s humble heart and deep love for God gave her the faith
that helped her form the words, ‘Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord, May it
be done according to Your word.’ Luke 1:37-38. This is the ultimate example of
how to love You our Lord, our Creator, our Savior. When we adopt Your mother’s
humble heart, then we can love, honor and glorify You with her immense faith,
hope and love.
“The
Lady of Guadalupe celebration reminds us how our dear Mother once again reveals
how much the You love a humble pure heart. In 1531, she chose an unknown,
uneducated farmer, an Aztec convert, to be the one to show a sign of Your love
and divine desire by placing an image of herself on San Juan Diego’s tilma (peasant
cloak) and filling it with out of season roses to prove to the local bishop
that her request to build a chapel in her honor was real. The chapel was constructed
in two weeks and within seven years, eight million native people were
converted. You never choose the ones we expect and Mary continues to teach us
that as she appeared to San Juan Diego in Mexico, to the three shepherd
children in Fatima, Portugal in 1917, and to a peasant girl Saint Bernadette in
Lourdes France in 1858. The humble heart is the most beautiful gift we can give
to you Lord.
“As we
strive to imitate You Christ, I see You as the baby Jesus in Mary’s arms looking
up into Your mother’s eyes and seeing only love and comfort. You, the Lord and
Creator of us all, with all that power, condensed into a tiny helpless infant
that must rely completely on another for all its care. I see the tiny infant
and hear the words, ‘Momma, I trust in you.’ I see how much You love and trust
Your mother and You ask us to do the same.
Jesus, I trust in You, in all that You send me and all that You don’t
send me. I trust in You and give You my heart through Your mother because I
trust in her that she will lead me to You.
“Dear
Lord, may the sweet smell of off season roses fill the noses of all your people
this day and throughout this Advent.”
